Don’t Make Me Laugh

Don’t Make Me Laugh

July 2, 2018 Off By Elaine Arias

To be honest, I can’t really laugh at this.  So, the director of the film Desire has gone on record defending the scene, claiming that the mothers of the two actresses were on set when it was filmed, and that the girls didn’t know what they were doing, exactly.  There is even, supposedly, a “making of” program showing how the scene was filmed.

I had wanted to bring this up in the earlier post, but didn’t want to edit it, as I’d have to edit the Medium post too, and I’m lazy.  I am not proud of that.  Perhaps it worked out for the best.

This is the director’s statement, copied from Variety’s article:

“Despair” is a film. When we see a shark eating a woman on film, no one thinks the woman really died or that the shark was real. We work in a world of fiction; and, for me, before being a director comes being a father.

Of course this scene was filmed using a trick, which was that the girls were copying a cowboy scene from a film by John Ford. The girls never understood what they were doing, they were just copying what they were seeing on the screen. No adult interacted with the girls, other than the child acting coach. Everything was done under the careful surveillance of the girls’ mothers. Because I knew this scene might cause some controversy at some point, there is “Making Of” footage of the filming of the entire scene.

Everything works inside the spectators’ heads, and how you think this scene was filmed will depend on your level of depravity.”

Oh, so WE’RE the depraved ones!  You have a little girl riding a pillow in a very, very sexual manner and we’re depraved for pointing it out?  Why the fuck is this scene in the film anyway, if you’re so fucking virtuous?

And pardon me, but I think this guy is full of shit.  How do we know the girls were ignorant of what they’re doing?  I am not about to track down the “making of” feature for this film, because I don’t even want to watch that.

I also love how Variety just had to point out that Megan Fox, one of the first to report this issue, is a “conservative” commentator.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter if they knew what they were doing or not.  The fact remains is that the director coached them into doing this, and filmed it.  Even more horrifying – their mothers allegedly watched this happen and said nothing.  A lot of sexually abused children end up doing stuff while not understanding what it is they’re doing.  That doesn’t absolve the abusers.

Netflix isn’t doing anything, and the mainstream media is still largely ignoring the issue.  Of course.

Since the r/pizzagate subreddit was banned, people have moved over to Voat.  There’s some interesting discussion in two different threads:

Diego Kaplan defending Netflix and his film ‘Desire’
Netflix under investigation for streaming disturbing child pornography scenes